Mountain Top

by Robert Whitlow

  “But he said his name was forged on the checks.”

  “He could have modified his normal signature so it would look like a forgery. We can have the checks examined by an expert. It might not turn up anything, but it would be worth a try. Getting Jesse to admit a criminal act would be next to impossible; however, there are three credible witnesses who will testify about Jesse’s attitude toward you this evening. It might be enough to create a reasonable doubt.”

  “What would happen to Jesse?”

  “Nothing, unless the DA decided to prosecute him. If the charges against you are dropped or a jury finds you not guilty, I suspect the whole matter would all go away. It’s not the kind of case Ken West, the district attorney, likes to take all the way.”

  They rode in silence. Mike turned onto another road.

  “But do you think Jesse wrote those two checks?” Sam asked.

  “It was a stupid thing to do, but if he’s as mad at you as he showed at the church, anything is possible. Now, he’s probably scared that he’ll get caught.”

  “Did you see anything about Jesse in your dream?”

  Mike shook his head and smiled. “I’m not sure about my dream. All the men in my dream were white. Why didn’t you tell me it was a black church?”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Of course not, but it makes me question my dream.”

  “Does Papa see in color?” Sam asked with a grin.

  “Don’t mess with me,” Mike responded.

  “It doesn’t make me doubt your dream,” Sam continued. “Papa likes variety. All creation shows it.”

  “Well, whatever happened at my house around 3:18 a.m. didn’t seem to have much relevance to that meeting.”

  “Is that when you woke up?”

  “Yes, it’s one of the few things I remember.”

  “Do you have a Bible in the car?” Sam asked.

  “Check the backseat.”

  Sam reached behind him. While Mike drove, Sam flipped through the pages.

  “What are you looking for?” Mike asked.

  “A clue to understanding your dream.”

  Sam turned several more pages. “Here’s something. Listen to this. ‘As I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.’ That’s Philippians 3:18. Your tears came when you looked at Jesse. The time of a dream is often important.”

  Mike didn’t look at Sam. “You can believe there is a connection if you want to, but I think plugging a verse into an alarm clock and concluding it’s a message from God is speculation.”

  “Just consider it. I’m trying to help you get smarter about the things you’re moving into.”

  Mike turned onto McAfee Road.

  “I’m not sure about the tears or the time of night,” he said. “My goal is to move you safely through the criminal justice system and out the other side without any more tears for Muriel or jail time for you.”

  Fourteen

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, MIKE FILED A FLURRY OF MOTIONS IN Sam’s case, including a request for scientific evaluation of the checks deposited to Sam’s bank account. Late in the afternoon, he received a call from Melissa Hall.

  “I went over your motions with Ken,” the assistant DA said. “There isn’t much in the file, but we’ll let you copy what you want.”

  “Is there a statement from Miller?”

  “Signed after receiving his Miranda rights.”

  “And the checks?”

  “Yes, copies along with other bank records.”

  “Okay. When will the file be available?”

  “Whenever you want to review it. The secretary knows you have permission. Also, Ken wants to have an informal meeting with Judge Coberg about the letter the judge sent. Would you have any objection to meeting with the judge in chambers before bringing in an outside judge for a hearing?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “What is your availability?”

  “Any time except Sunday morning.”

  Mike waited for an acknowledgment of his attempt at humor but none came. He looked at the calendar on his computer. “Actually, I would prefer to do it next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.”

  “Both of those times work for Ken. I’ll check with the judge’s clerk and confirm via e-mail.”

  THAT EVENING MIKE TOOK PEG OUT TO EAT. ON THE WAY HOME, they passed a road that led away from town and deeper into the mountains.

  “How is your energy level?” Mike asked.

  “Mostly good.”

  “Do you have any plans on Friday?” Mike asked.

  “Just my usual date with Judge for a run. I might call Elizabeth Lambert for lunch.”

  “Would you like to climb Jefferson’s Ridge? I’ve been thinking about it since my sermon.”

  “I thought you and Bobby were going to play eighteen holes.”

  “I’d rather spend time with you.”

  Peg turned sideways in her seat. Mike stared straight ahead and fought off a guilty smile.

  “Bobby canceled on you,” she said.

  Mike nodded. “Yes. Sam Miller thinks he sees the past and the future, but he’s no match for you. Bobby is still swamped at work and can’t break away for a few hours. But I’d still rather be with you than playing golf with Bobby.”

  “Are you going to ride your bike while Judge and I run along beside you?”

  “No. We’ll all be on foot.”

  Peg was silent for a moment then sighed. “Okay. It’s time.”

  “For what?”

  “To go with you to the top of the mountain.”

  THURSDAY MORNING, DELORES BUZZED MIKE.

  “The lawn man is here,” she said curtly.

  Mike made a final note for a finance committee meeting and came out of his office. Sam, dressed in blue overalls and wearing a cap from a local feed and seed store on his head, stood in the waiting area. Delores had scooted her chair as far away from her desk as possible and eyed the older man suspiciously.

  “Glad the church is still standing,” Sam said.

  “What do you mean?” Mike asked.

  “In a dream last night, you and I were sitting in the sanctuary of your church when Bud Putnam came running in.”

  “The fire chief?”

  “Yep. The building was on fire. We had to leave and went outside to the parking lot. When I looked up, the roof of the church was covered in flames. At first, I wasn’t sure about the meaning. Papa often uses fire to represent good things, like His presence in a place, but the more I watched, the more I knew this was not a good fire. It was a fire from hell.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mike could see a shocked expression on Delores’s face.

  “Let’s go outside,” he suggested. “I’ll show you what to cut.”

  The two men walked down the hallway.

  “It wasn’t an actual fire, was it?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why would you see a church on fire?”

  “Fighting. When I see a church on fire in a bad way, it’s usually because there has been a lot of friction caused by fussing. Have you ever started a fire with a flint rock?”

  “No, and friction isn’t a problem here. We have a unified, growing congregation.” The two men walked out of the building. Mike helped Sam lift his push mower from the back of his truck and unload a couple of old metal gas cans.

  Sam quickly set a ramp and rolled off his riding mower.

  “Make sure you have plenty of smoke detectors,” Sam said.

  “We do. The insurance policy requires it. The custodian checks the batteries the first of every month.”

  “I’m talking about the kind that can detect a foul spirit from the pit.”

  Mike rolled his eyes. “The cemetery is the only tricky part of the property to cut. Everywhere else is clear enough that you should be able to use your big mower; however, the cemetery has some very old, partially missing markers. Be careful
not to break a mower blade on a piece of marble or cause any damage. Families take the resting place of their ancestors seriously.”

  Sam leaned over and checked the oil in his riding mower.

  “I’ll be careful. It’s the hidden dangers that can cause the biggest problems.”

  Mike returned to the administration wing.

  “I can’t believe you invited that man to cut our grass,” Delores sniffed when he reached her desk. “He’s a criminal—”

  “Wait a minute,” Mike interrupted. “He may have been tried in the court of public opinion, but in the eyes of the law, he’s innocent until proven guilty.”

  “You know what I mean,” Delores retorted. “Coming in here talking about setting fire to the church!”

  “It was a dream, not a literal event. And he didn’t mention anything about burning down the church. God speaks to men and women like him through pictures and symbols. Don’t let it bother you. I’ll be here until he finishes working.”

  The phone rang, and Delores picked it up. Mike went into his office. Over the next few hours, he occasionally glanced out a window to check on Sam’s progress. The old man was a steady worker, but once, Mike saw him kneeling at the water hole where the spring bubbled up through the rocks. At noon, Mike let Delores leave for lunch and went outside. Sam was finishing up the far side of the cemetery. Mike waved him over. Sam turned off the push mower and walked across the graveyard.

  “Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Mike asked.

  Sam mopped his forehead with a yellow bandanna he took from the front of his overalls.

  “I brought a plate of cold fried chicken, green beans, and black-eyed peas left over from supper last night.”

  “Want to heat it up in the microwave?”

  “It’s good cold, but better hot. What are you going to eat?”

  “A cup of yogurt.”

  Sam scoffed. “Not unless you have a chicken leg first.”

  Sam retrieved a small cooler from the front seat of his truck and followed Mike into the church kitchen. After a couple of minutes in the microwave, the fragrance of the chicken seeped into the room. Mike sniffed.

  “You should have tasted it last night,” Sam said, patting his stomach. “Since I got out of jail, Muriel has been spoiling me rotten.”

  When the beeper sounded, Mike opened the door of the microwave. It was an impressive amount of food.

  “Get yourself a plate,” Sam said. “I’m going to share Papa’s bounty with you. It’s the least I can do, seeing that you’re not charging me to be my lawyer.”

  Mike handed the old man a plate, and before he could protest, Sam scraped half the meal onto the second plate.

  “Pray and eat up,” Sam said, handing it to him. “If you’re still hungry, you can eat all the yogurt you want.”

  They sat on folding metal chairs at a rectangular table. Mike prayed and took a bite of chicken.

  “What did she put in this batter?” he asked.

  Sam held up a drumstick. “A secret recipe Colonel Sanders didn’t know about.”

  The meal reminded Mike of dinners at his aunt Sue’s house. Twice a year, Christmas and the Fourth of July, his family gathered at the large white home of his father’s sister in an older section of Raleigh to visit and eat, not necessarily in that order.

  “What will I tell Peg when she asks me about lunch?” Mike asked as he collected the final bite of black-eyed peas. “I’ve been trying to cut back.”

  “Pray she doesn’t ask,” Sam replied. “If she does, tell her you ate organic.”

  “Organic?”

  “That’s a word, isn’t it?” Sam replied. “For food that’s homegrown without using bag fertilizer.”

  “Yes. I can believe that about the vegetables, but did you raise this chicken?”

  “No, but I know the man who did. Muriel likes him because he kills and cleans them, too.”

  “Tell Muriel it was good. Sorry I can’t offer you dessert.”

  “I skip the sweets if I can have the rest.”

  Mike rinsed the empty plates in the sink and put them in the dishwasher.

  “How is the work progressing?”

  “You were right about the cemetery. It’s slow going, but once I finish I should move faster with the big mower. Do you know about the spring at the edge of the creek?”

  “Yes, I like to go there. It used to be a watering hole for horses.”

  Sam nodded. “I splashed some of the water on my face and got refreshed. There have been some praying people in this church. It would be good if a few new ones came to the surface to put out the fire.”

  Mike didn’t respond. He liked it better when Sam talked about Muriel’s fried chicken.

  FRIDAY MORNING, MIKE LIFTED HIS DAY PACK FROM ITS HOOK on the wall of the garage and brought it into the house. Judge saw the pack and began barking.

  “Settle down. You’re included,” Mike reassured him.

  He loaded the pack with water, snacks, a jacket for Peg, and an old quilt. He was lacing up his boots when Peg entered the kitchen. She was dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt with her hair in a ponytail sticking out the back of a ball cap.

  “How do I look?”

  “Perfect,” Mike answered. “I saw your hiking boots in the corner of the garage. Do they still fit?”

  Peg propped her left foot on his leg. “Are my feet swelling yet?”

  Mike tickled the bottom of her foot. Peg didn’t flinch.

  “No, and I see you haven’t lost your willpower. Don’t fix the coffee. I thought we would stop for breakfast on the way.”

  They went outside. It was a cool morning but without any clouds in the sky. “Do I need a jacket?” Peg asked.

  “Probably not, but I put one in the pack.”

  “And my pillow in case I want to lie down in the grass and take a nap?”

  Mike pointed to his chest. “This is your pillow.”

  They took Mike’s car. Peg didn’t like to get her car dusty, and the parking lot behind Hank’s Grocery wasn’t paved. Judge jumped into the backseat and lay down peacefully. Mike drove to the bottom of the ridge and through Shelton to the west side of town. He and Peg didn’t have to debate where to eat breakfast. He pulled into the parking lot for Traci’s Restaurant, a low-slung brown building with plate-glass windows along the front and one side. Calico curtains hung in at the edges of the windows. Mike cracked the back window for Judge, who sat up and sniffed the morning air.

  “I’ll bring you a bite of sausage biscuit,” Peg promised the dog as they left the car.

  A single door opened to a small waiting area beside the cash register. The restaurant was an L shape with bench seating along the walls and a row of tables down the middle. Within a few seconds of entering, Mike heard a female voice call his name.

  “Mike! Get over here!”

  Across the room, a skinny waitress in her late fifties motioned with her hand and pointed to an empty table. Mike and Peg came over to her.

  “How are you, Judy?” Mike asked.

  “Better now that you’re here.”

  Judy turned to Peg and patted her on the arm. “I used to see him all the time when he was practicing law. Now that he’s a preacher, he’s quit eating breakfast.”

  Judy had raised three children with no help from their father. For many years, she reported to work at 5:00 a.m. and worked through the lunch shift, arriving home in time to greet the school bus and begin her second job as a mother.

  “Don’t tell me what you want,” Judy said to Mike. “Let me take care of you.”

  Peg gave her order. The waitress returned with coffee: black for Mike, sugar and extra cream for Peg.

  “Fill me in on the family,” Mike said.

  “I have a new grandbaby, a little boy who is already sleeping through the night. But the funny thing is my younger daughter Margie. She’s been working out at the gym and is almost as buff as I used to be.”

  When in her twenties, Judy had been a serious
weight lifter. She still retained enough wiry strength to beat unsuspecting bus boys in arm wrestling.

  “Peg and I are going to have a baby,” Mike said. “We just found out.”

  Judy lifted her hands in the air. “Hallelujah. You get all that lawyer pressure off and get pregnant.”

  “I thought that applied to women,” Mike replied.

  “No, honey. It’s always the man.”

  Judy hustled away to take care of another table.

  “What did she mean?” Peg asked.

  Mike shook his head. “I’m not sure. Until I met Sam Miller, Judy was the most difficult person to understand I knew.”

  The waitress returned with two eggs over easy for Mike, crisp bacon, and dry toast. Peg’s plate held two scrambled eggs with a sausage biscuit along with a large glass of orange juice.

  “I looked out the window and saw that dog of yours in the car,” Judy said.

  “We’re going for a hike up Jefferson’s Ridge.”

  “That’s good. Your baby will be an early walker. I did a lot of walking when I was pregnant. It paid off until I had to start chasing them around the house.”

  Judy moved on at a rapid clip. Peg sipped her orange juice.

  “In her mind, everything is connected,” Peg said. “If I like orange juice, our child will want me to buy bags of oranges.”

  “Are you going to swim this summer?” Mike asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Good. When you combine swimming with your running and my bike riding, we’re going to produce a future triathlon champion.”

  When they finished, Mike left a generous tip on the table. Peg offered part of her sausage biscuit to Judge in her open palm. The dog scooped it up with a swift flick of his tongue.

  Mike drove away from town. Within a half mile, the number of older houses along the road dropped off, and they began to climb higher. New asphalt roads to the side signaled points of access to housing developments in the hill. Land that farmers once considered less desirable because it was rocky and hilly now commanded good prices.

  After driving almost ten miles, they reached Hank’s Grocery, a seventy-year-old country store and center of the local economy. The fourth-generation owners of the store stocked general merchandise even though most people now treated it like a convenience mart. Hunters and fishermen appreciated the availability of shotgun shells and fish hooks, and it was also possible to buy a connector hose for a clothes washer. A large graveled area behind the store had once served as a feed lot for cattle. Mike parked the car.